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Wireless - Sunday, July 22, 2007

Amp'd Mobile Reaches 3rd Level of Hell

Mobile service provider Amp'd is shutting down on Tuesday - If you are an Amp'd Mobile provider you probably wish you had more than a couple of days notice to figure out what you are going to do but you get what you deserve when you take your chances like this.) Amp'd says it is still holding out hopes for a buyers but would you want this mess?

Mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Amp’d Mobile had raised $107M in Series E, just last March. It had previously raised $250M. The latest round was led by hedge fund Old Lane Management joining return backers Columbia Capital, Highland Capital Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Intel Capital, MTV Networks, Tudor Investments and Universal Music Group. Lots of pain to go around.

Amp'd Mobile, went from 30K customers last September to 200K in April, but went back to 100K customers because most were let go for failing to pay their bills.

The lesson here, in our view, is that even though most people hate their wireless carriers, it is too darn expensive to market to them to convince them to leave their current carrier - and pay the onerous fee for leaving. It works if you are Apple and have an iPhone to lure but not if you are ESPN and have sports content or Amp'd and have neat commercials.

VentureBeat ads that Amp'd Mobile also got greedy and dropped credit checks to jump growth.

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